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<title>In All The Old Familiar Places by BlackLoisLane</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25223269">In All The Old Familiar Places</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackLoisLane/pseuds/BlackLoisLane'>BlackLoisLane</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Flash (TV 2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:52:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25223269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackLoisLane/pseuds/BlackLoisLane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces, all day and through. Barry mourns Iris in the future where she isn't rescued from Savitar (taken from my other Ao3 account, now closed)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barry Allen/Iris West</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In All The Old Familiar Places</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Allen sat on the cold floor, his long legs splayed brokenly out in front of him. Tears prickling in his eyes that refused to break free. He stared at her picture, flickering against the white wall. He remembered once how her smile had been his light in the darkness, the thing that guided him. It only tormented him now, serving as a constant reminder of his failure. It was why he couldn’t help Barry, no matter how the younger man pleaded. If he couldn’t help Iris, he couldn’t help anyone. </p><p>“I’m sorry baby,” he whispered, shutting his eyes. He’d said it so many times over so many years, until the words had lost all meaning, and maybe they’d never meant anything at all with nobody there to hear them. Still he said it. “I’m so fucking sorry.”</p><p>“<em>It’s alright Barry,” </em>at the too-familiar sound of her voice he flinched hard, a startled grunt escaping.It was only in his head, as clear as it sounded, there was nowhere else it could have been. Iris was gone. Yet he heard her sometimes, saw her. Usually after too little sleep, too many hours awake with his misery. He opened his eyes, and there she was, staring back at him, smiling that smile.</p><p>“Go away Iris, you’re not real,” he tried to remain cold, keep his voice level, but he couldn’t deny how it shook.</p><p>“Of course I’m real honey,” she dragged her small, pretty hand over his disheveled hair. “I’m a part of you, and you’re imagining me, so in a way, I <em>am</em> real.”</p><p>“No you’re not,” He launched himself up from the floor and began to pace, trying not to look at her. If he ignored her for long enough then she’d go, that’s what always happened.</p><p>“You’re not doing so hot huh?” she said.</p><p>“I told you to go,” he said, and finally the tears fell, but he wiped them away roughly, refusing to let them stay. “Go!”</p><p>After a few moments of silence he looked at the place where she’d been sitting. It was empty. He was empty. That was how it was supposed to be. He took a few deep breaths, trying to settle down. That was the right thing to do, telling her to go. He didn’t deserve to bring himself comfort by imagining her there. He’d let her die, and he had to live with that for the rest of his life.</p><p>But there it was again, that familiar warmth, her scent, the small weight of her hands on his chest, the feel of her body pressed against his back.</p><p>“Iris, please,” he said, frustrated. His hands remained stiff at his sides, resisting the urge to come up and hold hers.</p><p>“Come on, just talk to me for a second, and I’ll go. I swear.”</p><p>“What is there to say?”</p><p>She unfolded her arms from around him, and stepped around to face him. “Well, you can tell me how you’re doing.”</p><p>“Seriously?” he looked at her almost sarcastically, but her eyes were warm as they looked back into his.</p><p>“Or you can tell me whatever you want, like what did you have for breakfast today?”</p><p>“Scotch,” he answered honestly, in a hard, clipped voice.</p><p>“You can’t get drunk honey.”</p><p>“Won’t stop me from trying,” he rubbed the back of his neck firmly. “It’s what I do, I try and I try and I nothing works out. Look at what my trying did to you.”</p><p>“Babe,” she stepped close again, and wound her arms around his neck the way she used to. He hated it. “You did everything you could, what happened to me wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>He laughed bitterly. “Maybe it is really you, because I’d never say that. This was my fault Iris, it was all my fault.”</p><p>Finally he broke, sobbing the way he hadn’t in years, clutching her close to him. </p><p>“Shh,” she whispered. “It’s okay, it’s alright”</p><p>“It isn’t alright, nothing is alright.”</p><p>“You’re just hurting, that means you’re still in there babe.”</p><p>But he wasn’t, Barry Allen was gone. Without her there was no him. </p><p>“You know you have to help them right? They’re down there right now, needing you,” she said. “Dad, Cisco, <em>you</em>, they all need you.”</p><p>“They don’t need me, nobody needs me.”</p><p>She pulled away to look at him, and combed his stringy tendrils out of his eyes. “I need you to help them, it isn’t too late.”</p><p>God how she tortured him, how she ruined him. He knew he shouldn’t have let her stay, because he couldn’t turn her away now, he had to listen. He took her hand, and they walked to the security display. Sure enough, there they were, there <em>he</em>was, younger, hopeful, the man he could never be again. He was telling them all how they needed to be a team again, a family, how that was what she would have wanted.</p><p>“Smart man,” Iris said, resting her chin against his shoulder. Staring up at him.</p><p>“That’s not me anymore,” he said. “That was the man you loved.”</p><p>“I love any and every version of you Barry. You think you would have figured that out by now.”</p><p>He looked at her again, just staring at her face as the seconds ticked by. “God, how are you still so beautiful?”</p><p>She giggled. “Barry Allen, always such a charmer.”</p><p>He didn’t know why, what the point was, with her being a figment of his imagination and everything, but at that moment, before it passed him by for good, he had to kiss her. He leaned forward, slowly, until his lips were on hers. And maybe it was just the memory, of how they felt to kiss, where her curves sat on her body when he ran his hands up and down it, maybe all of that was strong  enough to feel like it was all really happening.</p><p>He pulled away, and with a broken voice he said, “I love you, I love you so, so much.”</p><p>“I love you too.”</p><p>“You have to go, don’t you?”</p><p>“I do.”</p><p>“And you’re not coming back?”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>They just stood there in silence, the sort of silence that wrapped itself around them, pulling them closer.</p><p>“But I’ll see you again one day, won’t I? I mean, when it’s time?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you that, babe. You either have to believe it or don’t”</p><p>And as she faded away, telling him she loved him one last time. He thought, for maybe the first time in his life, that he did, he believed it.</p><p>END</p>
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